Due to prolonged uncertainties with the Covid-19 global pandemic throughout the year, we have experienced some challenges in assessing the safety of an in-person event. While we are now satisfied that the event can be held in person (with a hybrid function), we have decided to move the Festival date until Wednesday 28 September 2022 – hold the date. The event will be held at the HOME Art Centre in central Manchester, U.K., in collaboration with the Mental Health Foundation, the Royal Institute of Philosophy, the Mind Association and the INPP (the International Network for Philosophy and Psychiatry).

The focus will be, as the name suggests, upon issues with inclusion of those with lived-experience in approaches to public mental health care. This is extremely broadly construed, and we hope to develop this for a public audience in conversation with invited participants to engage different voices on mental health (which is by no means limited to psychiatric philosophical categories, for instance). Topics discussed might focus upon questions such as: how do we accommodate competing values in values-based approaches to mental health care? What are the ethical risks associated with involving those with lived experience in research? Our plan at this stage, is to host a series of roundtable discussions, centred around master narratives and values disagreements, epistemic (in)justice in voicing lived experience as “expertise”, minority groups experience, peer support and self-management, and – but the precise focus the relevant research ‘strands’ of each panel will of course be based on invited participant’s own interests and preference. 

Thanks to the support of a generous Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual “Festival of Philosophy” Grant, we also hope to be able to bring together the research of those involved in the even as part of an edited volume drawn from the theme of the conference. The public festival award comes with a separate stand-alone Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement Volume book publishing contract with Cambridge University Press.